Hole in Time
by bluespace
Summary: A trip down to a populated planet has unexpected results for Trip, Malcolm and Hoshi. Please read and review. CHAPTER 8!!
1. The Hole

Disclaimer: Enterprise, Star Trek, and all the characters contained in that series are not mine and never were. I'm not paid for this. I'm just goofing around for the fun of it.  
  
Authors note: if you haven't figured it out already, I kind of like time and dimension travel, this could be really interesting, I'm just waiting to someone to tell me exactly how far I can and cant go. (  
  
  
  
  
  
She wasn't going to make it in time. This was just perfect. She was no scientist, not really, she was a linguist. Of course it had taken her longer to figure out the calculations and the little blips in the charts. It may have taken her to long, that was the problem now, time.  
  
Trip and Malcolm were with the Climarians at their 'Feast on the Presuppose'. It was a large banquet they had once a year at the edge of this large craggy abyss three miles from their village. It was a weeklong thing. The Climarians didn't have technology, not for lack of knowledge though. It was because of some sort of disturbance or interference coming form the pit of the abyss.  
  
So once a year the whole city trekked out to the edge on foot and eat till they passed out. There had to be some symbolism in there somewhere.  
  
The three of them had been invited along, as guest. The Captain had given his go ahead for a few days, and the rest was history. Except that when the group started to file out Hoshi had gotten a few blips from her tricorder. And just like the cat, she had to investigate it.  
  
She had told the other two to go ahead and go.  
  
But it wasn't the blips and calculations that were making her run now, though a rip in space-time wasn't something you saw everyday. No she was running because of what she had overheard from some excited locals.  
  
Annual sacrifice.  
  
And they weren't talking pigs and sheep, they were talking humans, foreigners, them. Anyway you sliced I comment like that, it just wasn't good.  
  
She ran as fast as her legs could carry her, the locals seemed to part like the sea at her approach. 'Yes new one race, race to you death.' She could almost hear them cackling in her mind.  
  
She thought she saw them up ahead and started waving her arms about.  
  
That was when she noticed how dangerously close they already were to the edge. And what exactly had she planed to do when she got here anyway. Tell the locals that they had better not or else. Great plan Hoshi, stunning in its brilliance there, girl.  
  
The guys had now seen her and were waving just as franticly for her to turn around and go back the way she came. Had her mind been working at anything approaching a normal speed she would have done just that. Instead it seemed to think there was still a chance to save them, and so plunged her head long in to the crowd.  
  
She could almost see Trip and Malcolm visibly deflate as they tried to figure out what in the world she was planning to do. The closer she got the more it began to register how hopeless the situation really was.  
  
And then from behind her came a forceful push just as she was trying to stop. And that was all she wrote.  
  
Hoshi went careening helplessly in to the two men who were perched precariously on the edge as it was. There was a few grunts, a scream, a whole lot of pin wheeling arms, and then the three of them went over the edge.  
  
Hoshi had never known such fear. She hated falling, and now it was how she would die.  
  
She seemed to fall forever, her voice long since having gone horse from screaming. Then she seemed to slow down. She didn't want to open her eyes. It was probably just some kind of perceptual illusion.  
  
With a whack she suddenly hit ground. Before she blacked out she could have sworn she heard someone yell, 'intruder alert.'  
  
  
  
  
  
Hehe, sound good so far? 


	2. The Landing

And rounding the corner comes chapter two…and the crowd goes wild!  
  
  
  
  
  
Hoshi's head really hurt as she came back to consciousness. She vaguely remembered falling off a cliff, at the moment though she was so thankful to be alive, she really didn't want to analyze how it was that she was alive.  
  
"Good your awake." She heard a male voice announce far to close to her head for her piece of mind.  
  
"I'd like to stay that way." She said defensively as she moved to plug her ears with her hands.  
  
"Ah ah ah, you'll get in the way of my scan. Hands down please." Could there be anything more annoying. She seriously doubted it as the person who owned the voice pushed her hands back down.  
  
She heard the sound of a strange scanner of some sort; obviously she wasn't on Climara anymore.  
  
Hoshi opened her eyes and was confronted with the face of a balding middle-aged human male. He seemed like he could be friendly, maybe. He was continuing with his scan as she studied his face. He seemed unfazed at all by her scrutiny.  
  
"This ones coming around too." She heard a voice from behind what she assumed was the doctor.  
  
Then she heard Trips voice from the same direction. He wasn't dead. None of them where dead, these people much have saved them.  
  
"What ran me over?" yeah that was Trip.  
  
"Trip, are you ok?" she tried to yell it across the room, but it came out only as a loud talking voice, which seemed to be the best she could do. The doctor didn't seem too happy that she had tried anything at all.  
  
"Stop that now, he's fine, your going to undo all the work I've done." He actually sounded irritated. Here she was, having nearly died, and HE was the one who was irritated.  
  
"Yeah i'm fine, amazingly. How am I fine again?" yep that was Trip all right.  
  
"Please just lay still, we're still trying to find answers ourselves right now." Said the other voice from the across the room, where she defiantly couldn't see it.  
  
"Please I need to sit up." Hoshi hated not being able to see anything.  
  
"Very well, if it will keep you quiet."  
  
"Excellent bedside manner." She murmured loudly. And to her surprise she thought she heard a chuckle come form the unnamed source. Suddenly she was sitting up. Well not suddenly, the bed did rise to a more upright position, but since her eyes were closed it seemed sudden.  
  
When she opened her eyes a thoroughly modern and bright, sickbay surrounded her.  
  
Just great, they had had to cart them all the way to earth it seems, but she was alive so she wasn't complaining.  
  
From her now upright position she could see Trip lying on a bed across the room near the door. Next to him was Malcolm. She seemed to be in a bed by herself, as in with no others around it. A tall blond man was examining Trip; Malcolm didn't seem to be awake yet. The man was asking Trip questions quietly, she couldn't make out what he was saying.  
  
"Are you better now?" The cranky doctor asked as he returned to examining her with devises she had never seen before. That was when she noticed his uniform. It was like nothing she had ever seen before. It looked vaguely Starfleet, but more streamlined then hers, no pockets or zippers. It was actually a bit disturbing.  
  
"Where am I?" she noticed a bit of a shake in her voice when she asked.  
  
The doctor and the blond man exchanged a look.  
  
"What is the last thing you remember?"  
  
"Um I remember being pushed off a cliff, not a happy memory." She shared a brief look with Trip.  
  
"Yeah that's my last memory too." He chimed in.  
  
"You were both pushed off a cliff?" the blond man asked incredulously.  
  
"Well Malcolm was too, it was a local custom thing. I was coming to warn them and kind of showed up to late." Hoshi explained.  
  
"I thought we were all dead for sure."  
  
"It felt like I stopped falling at the end, then I defiantly remember hitting something. And that's It." She turned her attention back to the doctor, waiting for him to fill in the blanks.  
  
He looked like he was about to when Malcolm began to come awake.  
  
While the blond man tended to Malcolm, the doctor tapped the broach on his chest.  
  
"Doctor to the bridge."  
  
"Go ahead Doctor." A female voice answered.  
  
"Our patients are awake."  
  
"Understood, on my way."  
  
"How did you do that?" Hoshi asked. If this was a new form of communicator, then as communications officer of the most advanced ship in Starfleet, she figured she had a right to know about it.  
  
"I think ill leave the questions for the Captain to answer."  
  
"Are we on a ship? At least tell us were we are." She just felt she had to know if she was on solid ground. Maybe it would help her get her barring.  
  
"You are on a ship." The blond man answered.  
  
"Well at least that's something." Malcolm said, speaking up for the first time and grabbing his head from the pain that resulted.  
  
"Is it a warp vessel?" Leave it to Trip to ask such a question.  
  
"Yes." The man answered again.  
  
"I really think that's enough Mr. Paris." The doctor really wasn't a pleasant person, Hoshi was deciding.  
  
She was about to voice this opinion when the doors opened and allowed in two more people. One was a woman, she wasn't very tall, but carried herself in a commanding manner. She had shoulder length brown-blond hair; she probably wasn't much over forty.  
  
With her was a dark skinned Vulcan, they were everywhere. But it was still good to see something so familiar. The strange thing was they both wore the same uniform.  
  
The woman approached to the center of the room, the Doctor and Mr. Paris moved to stand behind her.  
  
She nodded to the three of them on the beds; Trip and Malcolm had also been given a more upright position.  
  
"My Name is Kathryn Janway, this is Mr. Tuvok my tactical officer."  
  
"So then you're the captain then?" Malcolm asked.  
  
"That's correct." She answered easily.  
  
"What ship are we on then?" Trip asked, rubbing the back of his neck. "I've never seen this type of design before, and believe me I would have."  
  
"Your on the Federation Starship Voyager."  
  
"The Federation?" Hoshi was sure she had never heard of it. It better not be an Australian faction, they had just joined the world government, and surly they weren't operating independent of Starfleet development.  
  
The captain seemed to share a look with her, well, entourage. "Perhaps it would be best if we asked some questions and in the course of that ill try to answer all of yours."  
  
"Depends on what kind of questions you want to ask. I would be much happier if I knew who was going to use the answers." Malcolm as weapons officer took the floor in situations like this were there lives may be in danger. Hoshi and Trip where more then willing to let him.  
  
"Is this Federation an Australian faction?" Malcolm gave voice to Hoshi's earlier thoughts.  
  
Janeway shook her head. "I can assure you its nothing like that. Please, if you could just tell us your names and how you came to be here."  
  
"Captain I don't believe they know how they got here." Mr. Paris spoke up for them.  
  
"Ok your names then." She turned back to them.  
  
Hoshi and Trip looked at Malcolm for guidance.  
  
"Lieutenant Malcolm Reed."  
  
Trip nodded. "Lieutenant Commander Charles Tucker III."  
  
"Ensign Hoshi Sato."  
  
"Is that even possible?" Mr. Paris asked.  
  
"It wouldn't be the first time Tom." She sighed. "What year is this?"  
  
Well this didn't sound like a groundbreaking question. Malcolm deferred to Trip this time.  
  
"Its 2152." Only he almost sounded like he was asking her not telling her.  
  
Janway sighed again.  
  
"I'm afraid its not. The year is currently 2376 earth years." Tuvok supplied.  
  
  
  
  
  
To Be Continued…  
  
*and now the crowd waites for chapter three… 


	3. The standing

Hoshi shook her head sure she had heard him wrong. It had to be some kind of mistake.  
  
"Pardon me?" Trip asked politely. Obviously he to was disbelieving of what had just been said.  
  
"We believe it may have been a natural phenomenon, due to the particle residue left in its wake." Tuvok clarified.  
  
"A natural phenomenon." Hoshi said almost to herself, catching everyone's attention. "I think it was a natural phenomenon. I found some anomalous readings and was analyzing them, that's why I was late."  
  
"And what did the readings say?" Trip asked.  
  
"That there was a tear in space-time at the bottom of the abyss." She said chagrin.  
  
"A tear in space-time?" Trip didn't so much ask for clarification but more in the way of 'and you wait now to tell us this'.  
  
"I was going to double check the readings and the math, which I'm not very good at, and bring it to your attention. But then I overheard the locals talking about the sacrifice and how great it was to have visitors this year to do the honors instead of locals. I wasn't quit sure what they meant but I figured anything with the word sacrifice in it couldn't be good." She shrugged. "And I still didn't make it in time."  
  
Trip was rubbing his forehead with one hand by this point, the sudden victim of a headache, which arrived unannounced.  
  
"Well if its natural, then there's really no one to blame for it, no one to track down to demand an explanation, or reversal for that matter." Malcolm commented, he seemed almost dejected about it.  
  
"Well there may be a bigger problem." Janeway said. The three of them looked at her astonished she was still there. In their private conversation and assessment of their situation they had almost forgot the others were there.  
  
"Bigger then this? This I'm not really sure I want to hear." Trip said, he didn't bother to look up but continued to rub his head.  
  
"I second that." Malcolm said forcibly laying back in defeat.  
  
"You see, in our history we have no record of you disappearing in the year 2152." Paris supplied for his captain.  
  
"How is that possible?" Hoshi asked. Then she held up her hands as if to ward off a blow. "This doesn't have to do with time paradoxes dos it. Because honestly we recently dealt with one of those and all talking about it accomplished was to give us a large headache and more questions then I started with."  
  
"I can easily sympathize with you," Janeway said, her brow creasing as if to prepare herself for future pain. "But there has to be an explanation, and I'm afraid we need to discover that before we can proceed any further. The last thing we need is to disrupt such a vital timeline in history."  
  
"If you have records of our missions, which since you know we didn't disappear I assume you must have at least a limited record, I would like to see the mission to Climara. That was where this incident occurred. Or perhaps your information on the Climarians and their rituals." Trip suggested. He was falling easily in to the problem solving mode most engineers found second nature.  
  
"I could help with the translation." Hoshi piped up, the last thing she wanted was to be useless.  
  
"We will see what we can find." Janeway promised.  
  
"In the meantime you are under my care and I must insist on rest and recovery." The doctor chimed in. he came around and scanned Hoshi again. " You have injuries consistent with a fall from a height, mixed curiously with heatstroke like symptoms, fatigue, nausea, dehydration. All in all you have a recovery period ahead of you which I plan to enforce." He wasn't the most pleasant doctor Hoshi ever encountered.  
  
"You wont get an argument out of me." Hoshi said, feeling he needed an answer of some kind. Why anyone would choose to walk out of sickbay with that gruesome list she couldn't imagine. Talk about a workaholic.  
  
"I would like to ask permission to help with the research if possible, sir?" Malcolm said to the captain.  
  
'I rest my case' Hoshi thought to herself.  
  
"I think in this case I concur with the doctors recommendation. We'll keep you apprised of the situation at every turn I assure you."  
  
"How could you even think of work feeling like this?" Trip asked as he gratefully lay back with his arm over his eyes. "I'm just going to take the vacation offered and be glad for once it isn't my problem at the moment."  
  
Janeway was smiling at them, but it had a childlike quality to it. The kind of smile one gets at age four when one looks with amusement on the antics of their grandparents and realizes for the first time how human they are. It was kind of creepy to Hoshi. She wasn't sure she was ready to be history quit yet.  
  
The doctor was the one who caught her uneasy and possibly even sick expression.  
  
"Are you feeling worse?"  
  
"Suddenly, yes." She said closing her eyes to the calculations her brain was making. How many hundreds of years now had she been dead and buried?  
  
"Hoshi, you ok?" she heard Trips voice ask, she opened one eye to see both he and Malcolm leaning forward waiting worriedly for her answer.  
  
She smiled softly at them, men were such excitable creatures. "I'll be ok." Inside she wasn't quit so sure though.  
  
"I'm going to give you something to help you sleep, the rest will do you a world of good." The doctor said a moment before she heard a hissing noise and stared to feel darkness close in around her. Her last thought was of how welcoming that darkness was. Then she fell in to a dreamless sleep.  
  
  
  
Janeway noticed they way the two man visibly relaxed when put at ease by there crewmate. Hoshi was soon blissfully unconscious and the doctor was moving to the other beds ready to send them in to the same state.  
  
"Like I said, we will keep you appraised of the situation." She said as way of reassurance, before the doctor gave Lieutenant Commander Tucker his injection.  
  
"Thank you captain." He managed to say before sleep over took him as well.  
  
"If there is anything I can do captain." Lieutenant Reed left the open- ended question hanging as the doctor came around to his side.  
  
"I will keep it in mind Lieutenant." She assured him with a nod before his head to hit the pillow.  
  
"Tuvok, call a meeting of the senior staff." Janeway said as she left the sickbay. "This is something we need to figure out ASAP."  
  
"I agree, this could have very far reaching consequences." Tuvok said with a nod.  
  
"At best." She murmured.  
  
"Gather all the information we have available about this mission to Climara. I want to be as informed as possible." Tuvok nodded and they parted ways at the intersection as Janeway made her way to the turbolift and then the bridge.  
  
In the turbolift, with that time to herself, she allowed herself to feel the awe that had been plastered all over Tom's face. These three people were living legends. They had ventured out in space on the first warp vessel to carry on of the most notorious name in federation and indeed earth history. They had truly boldly traveled out in to the stars with little more then a sketchy knowledge of the area at best.  
  
Their time had been one were history was made with every mission, new discoveries with every away mission, new dangers around every bend.  
  
It was much like what she and her crew were facing now, the fist humans in the delta quadrant. Seeing the unknown and uncharted everyday. They had a lot in common.  
  
When she thought of what these people had already witnessing it was staggering. The first contact with the Klingons, the first records of temporal occurrences, the mysteries long standing they had solved.  
  
Would people hundreds of years from now, on ships routinely transversing the delta quadrant, remember her crew, her ship, in such a light?  
  
And if she suddenly found herself there among those future generations, would she be able to handle it? Maybe that was the most important question. How were these pinnacles of history going to stand in the future?  
  
The turbolift doors opened interrupting her thoughts.  
  
The members of the bridge crew were all looking at her expectantly.  
  
"It is them, as far as we can tell." She answered the unspoken question.  
  
"Wow." Harry Kim said from his station at ops. Everyone else seemed to quietly be pondering both the implications and honor their presence on the ship presented.  
  
Janeway nodded her understanding to Harry for his observation on the situation and then silently made her way to the briefing room.  
  
  
  
  
  
TO BE CONTINUED…  
  
*I wish it would have been longer, im having a bit more trouble writing in two time periods viewpoints then I thought, bare with me. 


	4. The Pacing

Ok here comes chapter four, are ya ready?  
  
  
  
  
  
"As you are all doubtless already aware, we have some very unusual visitors with us down in sickbay." Janeway started. "How about an update on their condition Mr. Paris, since the doctor wasn't able to leave them unattended."  
  
"They're recovering. It might be another couple of days before they are completely healed. The doctor is keeping them sedated in the meantime."  
  
"Alright then I would like to have an explanation and at least a start of a solution by the time these people wake up." She let her eyes scan over those seated around the table. If anyone could be expected to accomplish the impossible it would be this crew. They had done it countless times before, what was one more problem.  
  
"We did a check on the planet they mentioned." Chakotay broke in to her thoughts. "There seems to be no record of them going to the surface of the planet, though Captain Archer did place a warning buoy in the system. It was later removed by Starfleet command, and surprisingly, even though it is now open to trade, not even a Faragi ship has approached it."  
  
"I reviewed the information in the Vulcan databases, the planet was not even listed among the known inhabited world. And there is no record of a Vulcan ship ever landing there." Tuvok supplied.  
  
"Well that's odd, how is it then that they claim to have gone there?" Torres asked.  
  
Janeway held her hand up to be allowed to think. "What we know for sure is that these people are who they claim to be. The DNA testing was conclusive. As for their last mission, we are going to have to fill in the blanks as best we can. Ensign Sato said that there was a temporal disturbance not unlike a tear in space-time; located at the bottom of the ravine they fell in to. She also mentioned the intention of the locals to have a sacrifice on that very presupis and that it was an annual acurance. From this we need to fill in what happened down there. And then we need to build a working hypothesis on how to get these people home. The last thing we need is for there presence her to change our past."  
  
"Great more paradoxes." Harry Kim muttered under his breath.  
  
"We should be good at this by now." Paris said in answer to him friend, with a sarcastic smile.  
  
"Chakotay, I want you and seven to work in astrometrics and gain all the information the database has about this planet and its geology and anything it may have on the inhabitants."  
  
Chakotay nodded.  
  
"Mr. Kim I would like you to gather every thing we have about time distortions."  
  
"Yes mame."  
  
"Mr. Paris, you and B'elanna are going to find out everything about these people, prior to the accident only."  
  
"Ok, we're on it."  
  
"Good, and as soon as they wake up I'm going to enlist the help of our friends. This is a dangerous puzzle people; we need to tread with caution. Make sure that when, and I mean when, these people go back, they don't take with them knowledge they shouldn't have." She waited to receive nodes from all those around the table. "Dismissed."  
  
  
  
Hoshi woke with the vague knowledge of were she was. When she opened her eyes that knowledge was confirmed. It was the same strange sickbay she had hoped had been a dream. She saw Trip and Malcolm still asleep on the beds across the room, their readings silently registering on a screen.  
  
She was about to try and get up and go to them, when the doctor came out of the adjacent room.  
  
"Ah Ms.Sato, your awake."  
  
"Very much so." She answered rubbing her forehead absently to rid her self of the shadow of a headache that still remained.  
  
"Well lets see what we can do about that shall we." He said advancing on her with a weird looking hypo.  
  
"No really I would prefer to stay awake thank you." She scooted to the edge of the bed away from him.  
  
"It really would be easier for you to be sedated. You will be fully recovered before you know it." He had a large smile plastered on his face as he continued to come nearer.  
  
"I'm sure it would be fine, but I just really want to stay awake."  
  
"It is Captains orders."  
  
"Not my Captain."  
  
"Look the lady said no pal." Trip said from behind as he grabbed the doctor by the arm to stop his progress. He had come awake in the middle of the conversation and didn't like the way it was progressing.  
  
"Listen I know this is hard for all of you, and I understand you apprehension, but it really is for your own protection."  
  
"We don't need that kind of protection." Malcolm said, he came around them to stand in front of Hoshi who had climbed off the biobed.  
  
"We need their help to get back." Hoshi said coming to stand next to Malcolm.  
  
"Yes but its hard for us to know what their doing when they keep us unconscious the whole time." Malcolm stated.  
  
"I agree, we cant even be sure what they say is true. How do we know we've been hurled in to the future?" Trip pulled the doctor out of the way of the other two so they could make it to the door.  
  
  
  
"I assure you we haven't lied, but we are as much surprised by your presence here as you are to be here." The doctor could feel the situation quickly backpedaling out of his grasp. He watched as the first two made it out the door and in to the hall, pausing to wait for their shipmate. No this was not good at all.  
  
"Tell your captain, we'll be around." Trip said as he released the doctor and ran through the door after the other two.  
  
  
  
"Are we sure that was the wisest move?" Hoshi asked as they wandered the strange corridors avoiding the other people by occasionally ducking in to a side door.  
  
"Its better then being unconscious and unaware." Trip answered.  
  
"We need a plan of action though. If they have internal sensors it's only a matter of time before they send someone to drag us back to sickbay." Malcolm said, looking back in to the corridor to make sure they weren't already on their way.  
  
"If I could get to an access port I might be able to figure out how to disable their sensors. That should be our first priority. And then if we could get to engineering I may be able to get some idea of were we are from a panel in there."  
  
"Great now we just have to find these things." Said Hoshi, not to optimistically.  
  
Just them the deck below them shifted. They knew this feeling it meant the ship had hit something, or something had hit it. To confirm their suspicions, the red flashing lights and alert klaxon echoed through the corridor.  
  
"This should be interesting." Malcolm commented sarcastically.  
  
  
  
*Now I have to work on part five, shesh…it never ends : ) 


	5. The Pause

"Mr. Kim report." Janeway called as she exited her ready room on to the bridge.  
  
"An alien ship just jumped out of warp directly in our path and opened fire. There was no warning or provocation."  
  
"There is minimal damage to our port thrusters, the shields are holding." Tuvok supplied routinely.  
  
"Open a channel." Janeway said, standing before her seat on the bridge.  
  
"I cant, they don't seemed to have communication abilities." Kim answered with no small about of wonder in his voice. It was something he never seemed to lose even after all these years. It was almost enviable.  
  
"Wandering through space, deaf and on the offensive seems a dangerous way to travel." Chakotay commented. His eyes never left the screen. It was as though he was trying to see right through the hull of the attacking vessel.  
  
"Captain their configuration is not in our databases, and Seven has reported she and the Borg have not yet encountered their kind." Tuvok said.  
  
"Great another mystery." Janeway muttered uncharacteristically under her breath.  
  
"Tuvok pull us back to a safer distance. Lets show them we really don't want to fight here."  
  
"Aye captain."  
  
"Doctor to the bridge." Came the voice over the COM.  
  
"I'm kind of busy right now doctor." Janeway answered.  
  
"I just thought you would like to know that our guests have gone on a little unsupervised tour. I though that this might not be the best time for them to do that."  
  
Janeway sat marveling the way things could just pile up one on top of the other so quickly.  
  
"I'll go get them captain." Chakotay said, he was already out of his seat and halfway to the turbo lift.  
  
"Thank you." She said with genuine relief in her eyes.  
  
`Ok' Chakotay thought, `if I was from the past and didn't know a thing about a future ship that was under attack, where would I go?' it didn't even take a second for the answer to come to him. "Engineering, great, just want I need, and angry Klingon on top of everything else."  
  
**I promise you the next chapter will be way longer. I'm not in the habit normally, of loading such small chapters. But in the middle of writing this and another story, I had brain storms for two new ones, and so, as you can imagine, having trouble getting back in to character. But bare with me, I'm back on a roll.... I think : ) 


	6. The Search

*I was supposed to wait for my beta reader to read this, but I got to excited about having another chapter done I couldn't wait. I'm so bad, sorry.  
  
**ok disregard the above my wonderful beta reader returned my story and I've applied the suggestions. Enjoy!  
  
"So if I were Engineering where would I be?" Trip said under his voice.  
  
"I heard that." Hoshi commented behind them.  
  
They were blindly exploring the ship against their will. All they needed was to know where Engineering was. Trip was fairly certain that from there he could figure out what was going on. And he had assured Malcolm that they could find the Armory from there as well. It was the getting there part that was giving them trouble.  
  
"Well, things are substantially different." Trip defended himself as they stealthily rounded another corner.  
  
"You'd think there would be a map or something." Malcolm said, as he was scanning the walls looking for just that.  
  
"Maybe that's what these panels are?" Hoshi walked up to take a closer look at the strip of reflective black that ran along the walls at eye level.  
  
"Ok, but how do they work?" Malcolm asked as he too examined the panels.  
  
"Let me take a look see." Trip said. He ran his hand along the panel, and after less then a second it lit up giving all kinds of statistics arbitrarily. "Ok good theory...now what?"  
  
"Well, we just have to find the control labeled map I guess." Hoshi was examining the writing closely. "I think it's this one." She said pointing to a lit button that was marked `requests'.  
  
"Ok, lets give it a try." Trip said, pushed the button.  
  
"State request again, please." A female voice said in immediate response. Malcolm was just as quickly on the defensive.  
  
"Its voice activated, clever." Trip was still trying to puzzle out how it worked. He would love to install one of these on the Enterprise.  
  
"How do we get to Engineering from here?" Hoshi asked the voice while the two men were otherwise occupied in merely gawking at the machine.  
  
Arrows appeared on the display, they were blinking and pointed to the left.  
  
"So you just follow the yellow brick road, clever." Trip said, still in a state of fascination.  
  
"Come on, let's do as it says." Hoshi prompted as she began to take her own advice.  
  
Janeway was puzzling over her current problem. The `enemy' had yet to make any further move at them. They simply maintained their previous position. They didn't fire or advance. If they were truly malicious then they would have been attacking, instead they just sat there and watched. It was almost creepy. It seemed her only choice at this point was to let them.  
  
B'Lanna was never just twitting her thumbs. As chief engineer she was highly in favor of cloning research. Her need to be in more then one place at a time had to be greater than anyone else on the ship. At the moment she was running a diagnostic on the antimatter flow rate, it seemed to have been thrown off kilter after the spontaneous and unprovoked alien attack.  
  
"Would someone give me a reading on valve two please," she shouted to no one in particular.  
  
She was still waiting for a reply when Chakotay came up behind her and about gave her a heart attack.  
  
"Sorry, just wanted to know if you might have seen our guests around." Chakotay said when he saw her grab her chest.  
  
"No, I thought they were in sickbay, did you try there?" she answered sarcastically as she tried to get back to her diagnostic.  
  
"They seem to have wandered off. If you see anything let me know would you?"  
  
"Sure, now I have work to do," she said almost pushing him out of the way to get a padd with her additional data on it.  
  
"Thanks." He gave one last glance around to make sure he hadn't missed anything and then shaking his head turned to leave. He had been sure this would be the first place they would come. Now it was back to the drawing board.  
  
The three misfits ducked in to an adjacent corridor when they saw Chakotay exit Engineering.  
  
"Well, that should be Engineering." Hoshi said as they waited for more crewmembers to pass them by.  
  
"We can't just go in through the front door, we need to find another way in." Malcolm said as he kept an eye out for anyone who may decide to turn down their corridor.  
  
"I agree. If this is the main door, then Engineering extends this way, parallel to this wall." Trip motioned with his hands to the wall they were leaning on. "Lets follow this back till we get to an access panel, from there I should be able to find a jefferies tube into Main Engineering."  
  
They all nodded agreement and set out on their search.  
  
Captain Tirax glared at the alien ship on their main viewer. They had not advanced or retreated, yet they also didn't respond to the sent capsules that they had shot at the hull, or activated their viewer to receive the gestures that went with them.  
  
"Honored One, the aliens are sending out sound waves." Scented his communications officers with an upward wave of his hand from his place of work in the parapet.  
  
"Could that be their way of communicating?" Tirax scented to him cutting his two fingers together swiftly.  
  
"Unknown." Was the answer.  
  
There would not be such a need to communicate if they had not had such strong temporal reading wafting off their ship. The Trepaid were collectors of temporal anomalies and any and all information about them. It would be disrespectful to the Mighty Universe not to investigate such a large conference.  
  
"Try to decipher what the noise means." He suggested to the office with a pat on his own head. The bridge remained utterly silent except for the occasional tap that resulted from orders being laid in. Having no ears, though, the crew took no note.  
  
*I don't think that there are any huge mistakes, and more to come. Chapters that is not mistakes heaps of thanks to Hist_Astrea !! 


	7. The Wandering

A/N: ok here it is, the seventh chapter. It could be longer, I know, but I was tired and I just wanted to get something out there for you guys. Hopefully its sweet as well as short, if you know what I mean, I hope you do cause I don't. Enjoy.  
  
  
  
"Ok, this couldn't be smaller." Hoshi said as she once again got a little too close to Trip who was crawling ahead of her with all the speed of a turtle on a depressant drip.  
  
"Could we speed this up a bit?" Malcolm asked from behind her.  
  
"Something wrong with your view?" Trip asked.  
  
"Ok, we have been in here far too long, time to find the exit, ASAP." Hoshi said meaningfully to Trip's backside.  
  
"What you two fail to realize is that, much like yourselves, I have never been inside this ship's Jeffries tubes. This fact makes split second decisions and pinpoint accuracy just a bit difficult." Trip was in snarky mode at this point.  
  
Hoshi figured he was really missing his engines about now. She, however, just missed her bed and the opportunity to use it at this point.  
  
"We are parallel to Engineering's second level, I can still hear the core vibrations, so we need to find a junction to the right." Trip was more talking to himself rather than to them.  
  
After an hour of wandering through cramped tubes on hands and knees and breathlessly avoiding the two crewmen who had almost stumbled upon them, the inside of this ship had lost its novelty. As it was, Hoshi knew more about the inside of Voyager then she did about the mess hall on Enterprise.  
  
"Are you quite certain its right, commander?" Malcolm asked.  
  
"Would you leave the man alone, I would like to reach our destination before rheumatoid arthritis sets in." Ok, Hoshi now realized she was entering her own disagreeable place, which left only Reed in sensible-land, god save them all.  
  
"We go right. I hear the vibrations, Malcolm, and they are to the right," Trip said.  
  
"Ok right it is." Hoshi said in Malcolm's stead. They were still crawling straight ahead. "There is no junction is there?" She asked.  
  
"Nope." Replied Trip, still at the lead.  
  
"Ok, so long as I know." Hoshi apologized to her joints as she jostled forward on them with anything but a smile on her face.  
  
  
  
"Well, it's only one ship, where can they be?" Janeway was definitely not pleased with the lack of progress in locating the missing time travelers.  
  
"They have not left the ship. Not in anyway we would be aware of." Tuvok added, not so helpfully.  
  
"Captain, they were in no shape to go non-stop. They have to have found a place to rest. They could be sleeping or napping anywhere on the ship. The sedative I gave them was retroactive." The doctor was all but pleading his medical skills to her.  
  
"Doctor, no one is blaming you for their dash from sickbay. I would simply like them returned there," Janeway turned her gaze meaningfully to Chakotay.  
  
"We're still looking." He responded.  
  
"I'm still detecting the temporal disturbance, so they are definitely on board." Harry Kim chimed in.  
  
"Well, that narrows the search. I want teams on this immediately, everyone you can spare. For all we know their temporal displacement could desintegrate the ship, or it could pull us back from the inside out, or it could do nothing at all. Unfortunately, we need them here for study in order to determine exactly what it will do. So, lets get them back," the captain never raised her voice, but she didn't have to, they got the point. "Dismissed."  
  
  
  
"So, we have three missing pre-federation members of Starfleet, who are most likely exhausted, confused, and looking for a way home." Tom Paris ticked off the points on his fingers as he walked with Harry towards the shuttle bay. "One is an armory officer, so probably wants to blast his way out of the situation; but the weapons locker is clear and there are no unaccounted for firearms on board, so he's not in charge. The other is a linguist and so probably wants to talk or reason her way out of the situation; but we have heard nothing from them, so she's not in charge. The last is an engineer, he would want to fix the problem, and so, would need to know as much about it as possible. He is more than likely in charge."  
  
Harry opened the bay doors and the walked in together. "The problem is, they are unfamiliar with the ship, so they could be anywhere trying to gather that information," Harry said, finishing his friends thought.  
  
"Right, but the shuttle bay, Harry really, we're talking about the most acclaimed engineer next to Montgomery Scott. He would know there was nothing in the shuttle bay."  
  
"Ah, but the shuttle bays used to be located near engineering." Harry said, holding one finger in the air like a mock Sherlock Holms.  
  
"So, you think he would come here as a short cut or what?" Tom asked as he walked toward the control panel.  
  
Harry sighed as he started checking crates and Tom checked the control panel for unauthorized access. "I don't know. At this point they could be anywhere."  
  
"Well, they weren't here." Tom said as he shut down the panel. "No access was made to this bay since the last fact finding sweep we did two weeks ago."  
  
"Fine," Harry said, by-passing the last two crates and the Jeffries tube entrance. "We're off to rec-room two."  
  
"Yippy," Tom said, without even a trace of enthusiasm as he followed his friend out of the bay and the doors closed behind them.  
  
  
  
"Well, it's an honest mistake, as far as I knew the shuttle bay was near engineering." Trip said in his defense to the glares that where thrown his way after the near miss with the two bored officers. How they had gotten this off track he had no idea.  
  
"We'll just have to turn around. We were right parallel to it, maybe we should have gone down instead of up, that could have led to a first level entrance." He was squishing himself to face the other way as he spoke. When he was, face the other way that is, he was also nose to nose with an annoyed and very tired Hoshi Sato. Not the best place for one to be.  
  
"How far back is the wrong turn?" she asked in an even voice.  
  
Malcolm, obedient to the tee, was already facing the other way when he answered on Trip's behalf. "About two junctions and a level down."  
  
If Trip didn't know better, he would have sworn Hoshi had growled as she turned slowly to resume crawling in the opposite direction.  
  
**Its really late and I'm too tired to write anymore, but you begged and begged and begged, so here is what I got...( 


	8. The Awakening

"Captain, I believe I may have discovered something of interest." Tuvok said from his station.  
  
Janeway stood from the captain's chair and came around to stand beside the Vulcan. "What have you found Mr. Tuvok?"  
  
"I believe that the hit we sustained my have had a purpose other then destruction."  
  
"What led you to this theory?" asked Janeway.  
  
"In studying the blast point I have found trace elements of ammonia and chlorine. Also, the impact burns indicate that the missile was in the middle of some sort of maneuver parallel to the hull prior to impact."  
  
Janeway stared puzzled at the read-out for a second, "And what do you suggest that this means?"  
  
"At this point, it is unclear, but it made me consider that not all species we encounter have the same language, structure, or cultural customs. This could very well be their form of greeting." Tuvok responded.  
  
The Captain thought about it for a second before responding. "It certainly does get your attention. Keep on that, see what else you can find."  
  
Tuvok nodded and resumed his work.  
  
  
  
Malcolm Reed woke as a foot careened into his face. "What the…" He sat up suddenly and his head collided with the top of the Jeffries tube. "Ok, ow."  
  
It was coming back to him now. They were in the future and they were searching for engineering. So why was he asleep? He rubbed his head where it had collided with the ceiling and looked around himself.  
  
In front of him lay Hoshi, curled in a ball, and jerking in response to whatever dream she may be having. In front of her sprawled out on his stomach with his hands supporting his head, was Trip.  
  
Great, anyone could have stumbled upon them like this. It must have been that doctor and his bloody shots. This was a complication they definitely didn't need.  
  
Reed carefully crawled around Hoshi and Trip and turned himself around to face the engineer. He gently shook Trip's shoulders. "Come on, its time to wake up now," he whispered.  
  
"Go away, would ya," Trip mumbled as he turned his head to the other side and dozed back out of reality.  
  
"Trip, I mean it, we have to get moving." Reed said it a little louder now and his shaking was more forceful.  
  
Slowly Trip began to blink his way back to consciousness. "What happened?" he asked, rubbing his eyes as Reed moved to wake Hoshi.  
  
Hoshi came awake with a start, hitting her own head on the ceiling and grabbing the developing bump with her hand.  
  
"I think that doctor drugged us," Reed answered both Trip's question and Hoshi's puzzled expression. "Good news is that no one seems to have found us and we appear to be right outside the hatch to engineering." He motioned to the dead end in front of them.  
  
"Well, that's progress," Trip said, pulling himself together.  
  
Hoshi was running her hands through her hair checking absentmindedly for a bump. "So, now where do we go from here?" She asked.  
  
"We check if the coast is clear and ideally it will be. Then we will be able to find what got us here and how to get back," Trip said. "Ideally, that is." He qualified again.  
  
"Ok," She said. There was a pause. "So how do we do that?"  
  
Trip and Reed exchanged a glance.  
  
"Well, I guess we should just open this hatch and see who's around," Trip said finally.  
  
"Yeah, that sounds like a sound course of action." Reed agreed. Again no one moved.  
  
"Oh for heavens sake," Hoshi said as she quickly moved past them and pushed the control opening the hatch.  
  
  
  
*Me evil? 


	9. The Catch

When assigned to check engineering B'lanna certainly hadn't thought that the three missing 'guests' would literally come to her. She had been about to report an all clear on the whole section, when the Jeffries tube hatch beside her opened to reveal three rather guilty looking officers. Easier then she thought.  
  
For a moment they all just stared at each other. Then the three seemed to surmise that she had indeed seen them, and there was no use in trying to remain invisible anymore.  
  
The woman was the first to crawl out.  
  
~~~1~~~1~~~1~~~  
  
Hoshi couldn't have been more surprised when she opened the hatch right in to engineering and a very startled engineer. But it was really a far hope that the whole section be deserted when they entered. There had really been no other choice. They could only go crawling through tubes for so long. Hoshi knew she had definitely met her limit on that.  
  
With an indecisive hesitation, Hoshi simply stared at the woman for a moment. Then she climbed out in front of her. The engineer had a tanned skin tone and, what looked like, almost Klingon ridges on her forehead.  
  
Hoshi graciously extended her hand as her two shipmates crawled out behind her. "Hoshi Sato, its nice to meet you." She said. The engineer stared at her hand for a moment and then extended her own.  
  
"B'Lanna Torres, Chief Engineer." They shook hands gingerly.  
  
Reed and Trip exchanged a look behind Hoshi's back and then proceeded to follow her example.  
  
"Charles Tucker III." Trip said and looked around as Reed stepped forward to introduce himself.  
  
"It's a nice setup you have here." Trip said.  
  
"Thank you, it works well for us." B'Lanna said, still a bit leery about the whole situation. "I believe that your presence is required in sickbay." There was really no point in not being civil, after all.  
  
"We thought it might be." Trip answered. "Sickbay was never my favorite place."  
  
"Mine either, but captains orders and all."  
  
Trip nodded. "We understand."  
  
Still they just stood there looking at each other.  
  
"I don't suppose there's any chance of getting around it, maybe skipping straight to the investigating of our problem, is there?" he asked almost as an afterthought.  
  
"No, I don't think so." She was smiling when she said it though.  
  
"I didn't think so." Trip replied  
  
"We really would just like to get home." Hoshi said. There had to be a way to make these people understand. It was so awkward being in a time where you knew nothing that was going on.  
  
"We are looking in to the situation. We just have a lot of experience with time paradoxes, the captain especially, and we tend to be very cautious around them."  
  
"I can imagine." Reed said from behind them.  
  
The woman just smiled again, and motioned for them to perseed her to sickbay.  
  
"Pardon my asking, but you look a bit Klingon." Trip said as they descended to the lower level of Engineering.  
  
"Half." She said over her shoulder. "My mother was Klingon."  
  
"You must have had an interesting childhood." He commented.  
  
"Very." She didn't seem to be about to elaborate though. 


	10. The Discussion

A/N: sorry its been so long between chapters, they are gunna be small for awhile. My RL has kind of taken over and the time available drastically decreased for a while there. Also, if any of you have any suggestions or hopes of what you would like to see in this story, encounters or timeline or whatnot, email me and let me know: elmo_in_space@hotmail.com  
  
Thanks. Ok done babbling now, so on with the show.  
  
~~~~~  
  
As the four officers entered sickbay there was a buzz of activity. The doctor seemed to materialize from nowhere and before they could begin to give explanation for their sudden departure he was already scanning then and motioning them to different biobeds. The whole while he kept up a constant flow of words, berating them and bemoaning his own position.  
  
"The indignity of it all. I am a doctor after all, I'm not meant to get traipsing around the ship in search of errant patients. Maybe its different where you come from, but here an order to remain in sickbay is strictly adhered to."  
  
Hoshi noticed the half Klingon engineer covered her mouth to hide a small smirk when the doctor said this. She had a feeling it was perhaps not as 'strictly' adhered to, as the doctor would like to have them think.  
  
"…And in your conditions you should have been here recuperating. Who knows what further damage you may have incurred as you went running about without authorization."  
  
Hoshi suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. She was beginning to with that they had just made a run for it when coming face to face with the officer in engineering. Any thing had to be better then this, even a stun blast.  
  
"Doctor, I think our guests get the idea." Hoshi and the two others turned to see the Captain as she entered the room. Despite her lighthearted comment to the doctor, her expression was anything but amused. "Would you give us a moment please?" She asked her two crewmen. Then without waiting for them to answer she advanced on Hoshi, Trip and Malcolm. Hoshi felt as if she was about to receive a scolding from an irritated aunt.  
  
As the sound of the doors shutting behind the two retreating officers filled the room the captain took a deep breath let it out slowly, then one by one looked them each in the eyes.  
  
"I understand that this is difficult for you, I really do. My crew and I have been in a number of situations where we felt like fish out of water, like we had now control over what was happening. I know first hand how frustrating that can be." She took another deep breath. "What I need you to do is try to understand that its also frustrating standing where I do now. There is great and very real, danger of corrupting the timeline here. To do that would mean catastrophe for the present that we are now standing in. on wrong move or misspoken word or peek at something that should remain hidden could mean nonexistence or worse. This is the weight I labor under right now. We are doing our utmost to find a way to send you home. We are struggling to understand how you came to be here in the first place, and we will find a solution,"  
  
Malcolm opened his mouth as if to interject something but the captain held up her hand to stop it. "And we will require and appreciate your help." She finished her sentence. Malcolm nodded at that, as did Trip. "But your help will probably need to be provided from here. There is just to much risk otherwise."  
  
Hoshi listened intently to the speech, taking in to consideration, for the first time, the other side of the story. When the captain was finished she turned her attention to Trip. He had his head down and seemed to be thinking over the captain's words as he stared at the floor.  
  
Finally with a deep sigh he raised his eyes to meet the captains. "We understand your situation, and we are ready to cooperate and provide what help we can." The captain nodded at this.  
  
Hoshi noticed that Trip hadn't apologized for them leaving in the first place. She knew the reason for this as well. At the time they had been left in the dark as to the direction of the investigation and their own predicament. They had been given sketchy information at best and had little hope of real action from this crew from the future. Under the circumstances it had been their duty to try to return to their ship.  
  
Now though, things seemed to be different, Hoshi thought.  
  
No sooner had this thought gone threw her mind and the ship shook from a collision. Almost at the same moment a voice came over the comm. requesting the captains presence on the bridge.  
  
Malcolm shook his head as the captain left the room. "This can not be good." 


End file.
